Editor's Note Fall 2014

Set the Table with Mutton

I once had a “wild” sheep named Janet. When I would walk down to the field where she was kept with the other sheep, she would observe me with calm confidence. Then, when I would open the gate from one enclosure to the next, she’d jump the fence and run away up the hill.

Make Your Own Immune-Boosting Cough Syrup

With cold season fast approaching and the autumn harvest at hand, consider creating this tasty, family-friendly remedy for winter ailments. As well as relieving those irritating coughs, this homemade cough syrup is a powerful immune booster.

Seeding Variety in Vermont

Seed saving—the act (and art) of preserving seeds from plants that are allowed to bolt or mature—has taken on increasing importance of late. With challenges brought on by a changing climate, and with increased efforts by seed companies to corner the seed market, diversity has all but disappeared from available seed stock, and seeds that regenerate themselves have started to become a rarity.

Planting a LiLi

To understand what the LiLi pasteurizer—conceived and developed in Vermont—could mean to the dairy community of Orange County, New York, I drove to the Hudson Valley in early July and chatted with some longtime dairy farmers.

Apples’ Golden Age

I didn’t know an apple could be revolutionary just by being green. Yet in the 1980s, when Granny Smiths began to claim their slice of the supermarket produce aisle, they broke up the duopoly of red and yellow (mostly red) and proved that consumers could accept different-looking apples.

The Challenges of Sourcing Locally

The sun is up, the kids are stirring, and as I sit at my kitchen counter in Cabot with a cup of strong black coffee in hand, I review my list: 7 a.m.,Kids to School; 8 a.m., Craftsbury; 9 a.m., Hardwick; 9:45 a.m., East Hardwick; 10:30 a.m., Kitchen.

Farmers' Kitchen—Zucchini Gone Wild

The Waterville House

Three summers ago, Jacob and I moved back to Vermont from the southeastern corner of Idaho. Tired of the long Teton Valley winter, we’d stared longingly at the March photo on our Vermont Life calendar: a tractor crawling along its farm beneath Mount Mansfield.

Helen Labun Jordan

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | February 22, 2017

“I unabashedly describe myself as a local food advocate,” wrote Marlboro College student Nathaniel Brooks in 2015, as he was launching his new business. “I see re-localizing our food system as a key lever for shifting our culture away from its current path toward one of greater interconnection, mindfulness, and sustainability.”

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | August 22, 2014

I didn’t know an apple could be revolutionary just by being green. Yet in the 1980s, when Granny Smiths began to claim their slice of the supermarket produce aisle, they broke up the duopoly of red and yellow (mostly red) and proved that consumers could accept different-looking apples.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | February 19, 2014

I’ve spent years walking past any dandelion greens I see for sale, on the grounds that I will not pay for something that’s growing everywhere I look all spring and summer. Granted, I never stop to pick those free dandelion leaves, so inevitably, a vegetable that I won’t buy because it’s too common ends up not being at all common on my plate. It’s the Dandelion Paradox. This past winter, I wanted to unravel it.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | November 26, 2013

A food’s flavor can be hard to describe. We have a whole vocabulary for talking about how food is produced with terms like organic, heirloom, grass fed, pasture raised, line caught, cage free, community supported, miles traveled.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | April 04, 2013

Here’s the first thing you should know about making specialty liquors: cupcake vodka is not made by fermenting cupcakes. Likewise for the cotton candy, cookie dough, whipped cream, and caramel vodkas all lining store shelves today. These trendy varieties are made by adding flavoring after the vodka is distilled; it’s why we can have cocktails that resemble a dessert buffet. For many consumers today, this is the most familiar way to make a vodka stand out from the rest. But it isn’t the only way.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | June 01, 2012

Ray Bernier, like many farmers, is inventive. When he realized he needed to transition out of the dairy business, he turned his Milton farm into a home for 400 emus. The emu market didn’t materialize (although he still swears by emu oil and buys some every year at the fairs) so he turned to raising horses. Somewhere along the line there were ostrich in there, too, but he could never get the chicks to grow to adults.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | September 01, 2011

Barley is furry. It is, in the eyes of Nick Cowles, “…golden and beautiful and furry…and it might tickle.”

Nick was preparing a group of Green Mountain Crop Mob volunteers to enter his fields at Shelburne Orchards this past July. He was responding to a question about appropriate clothes for that morning’s work. The furry warning, and a gesture to the bathroom (recently cleaned in our honor), were all we needed before setting off through the orchards toward the five acres of barley we’d signed on to weed that morning.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | March 01, 2011

There are people in Vermont who prefer fake maple syrup—not just people who are looking for something cheaper but who actually prefer the stuff made of corn syrup. There are other people in Vermont who don’t talk to those fake syrup types. And there are Vermonters who stand by Grade B for all occasions and others who keep a little Fancy on hand.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | September 01, 2009

The local foods movement can claim its roots in Vermonters’ earliest enterprises. Long before ski vacations and the Golden Dome, there was boiling down maple sap and digging root crops for the winter. But food isn’t the only part of our local economy with a long pedigree. Our country stores have a history that stretches through the centuries, close on the heels of those first farms. And like those farms, today’s country stores are both celebrated by their community and challenged to find a viable business model to carry them into the future.

Written by Helen Labun Jordan | June 01, 2009

Here are some facts about an acre. It is 43,560 square feet. It’s about 40 percent of a hectare, the metric system’s equivalent of an acre. It can be estimated by picturing a football field without the end zones. Most U.S. agricultural production takes place on a much, much grander scale—an average of 440 acres, to be exact—but to many Americans, having even a single acre of productive land seems like a pretty good deal.

Contributing Authors Fall '14

What we do

A quarterly magazine devoted to covering local food, sustainable farming, and the many people building the Vermont food system.

Vermont's Local Banquet Magazine illuminates the connections between local food and Vermont communities. Our stories, interviews, and essays reveal how Vermont residents are building their local food systems, how farmers are faring in a time of great opportunity and challenge, and how Vermont’s agricultural landscape is changing as the localvore movement shapes what is grown and raised here.